Pest control

With spring arriving, I had intended to spend the weekend doing the semiannual wardrobe rollover, putting away the warm winter sweaters and jackets and pulling out my summer wardrobe. Alas, when I took out one of my woolen jackets, I was greeted by a rather visible hole on the back side of it. Moth. Turned out that the rear side of my closet , which consists of two parts that are joined by a stripe of elastic self-sticking tape, had, over the course of the winter, come apart, and those critters had obviously taken that as their way inside.
Now the jacket they had been feasting on was one that I had been thinking about decluttering anyway, as the color doesn´t suit me any more since I have ceased to be a fake blonde. But I also have my fur jacket in there, and on the shelves under and above the main compartment, towels and bedclothes.
So, there was nothing to it but pull out everything that was in there and check for moth traces. One woolen scarf had fallen prey to them, too, and was duly ditched. The other items didn´t yet have traces on them, so I just shook them out. The fur jacket was thankfully in a protective cover, so I hope they didn´t get to it, but I´ll have to get some mothballs to put in there just in case. I´m not a fan of these, but that fur jacket is the warmest winter garment I have, and I´d hate to have it chewed up.
The clothes dryer in my living room is full of freshly laundered towels, and the bed linens are lying in the corridor waiting to be laundered, too. The closet has been wiped with alcohol glass cleaner.
Before putting the clothes back on the rack, of course, I did a size check. What I ended up with was half a sack full of too-big items, among them most of the jackets I´d worn last winter and a linen suit that had, by now, also become unwearably wide.
And I´ll check everything  I put back for wear and tear, too. Maybe there´ll be less towels and bedclothes to put back than I took out. Having everything freshly laundered isn´t such a bad thing, either, even though this may be the first occasion I regret not owning an electric clothes dryer. On the other hand, if I have too many to dry on the rack, I probably have too many, period. I´ll have to be selective about what I put back.
As I launder the items as hot as possible to ensure getting rid of moth eggs, this is also quite an expense as far as our electric and water bills are concerned. But I don´t really think I have a choice there- either wash them, or risk having those beasties multiply again inside my wardrobe.
And the next time I get to a hardware store, I´ll get myself some duct tape to patch up the rear wall of my closet.
Meanwhile, the half-empty closet shows me clearly how many of my old clothes won´t accompany me into my slim life. Guess what, as I am not, presently, going bare, this is a great way of finding out how many clothes I really need. Maybe, in the end, I won´t even need as much closet space. If and when we ever get around to our- ever postponed- bedroom relocation project, that may even be of some help.

There´s no decluttering help like finding some pests, is there?


Julia